The first computer hard drive weighed more than a tonne
TDT | Manama
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IBM’s RAMAC 305, introduced in 1956, was the world’s first commercial computer to use a hard disk drive. The system contained 50 magnetic disks, each measuring 24 inches across, and could store around 5 megabytes of data.
The enormous machine required a dedicated room and was vastly different from the tiny storage devices we use today. A modern microSD card, small enough to fit on a fingertip, can store hundreds of gigabytes of data — tens of thousands of times more than RAMAC’s original capacity.
What makes the story even more remarkable is how quickly storage technology has evolved. From magnetic disks that filled an entire room to solid-state drives and tiny memory cards, engineers have dramatically increased storage capacity while shrinking physical size.
TechZone fact: Today, a single smartphone can carry more data than many early computers could store in their entire systems.
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